From Latin American To Polish Varieties, Blood Sausage Plentiful In Connecticut

Colombian blood sausage can be found at Antojitos Donde Julio on Hartford's… (Wayne Jebian, Special To…)

March 26, 2014|By WAYNE JEBIAN, Special to CTNow

Outside of Criollisimo Restaurant on Arch Street in New Britain, on a sandwich board advertising the specials of the day, the magic word, "Morcilla," could be seen down the sidewalk. Inside, waiting at the counter was Diane Alverio, publisher of the online English-language Hispanic news site, CTLatinoNews.com. No, the morcilla wasn't cooked yet, she was told, but for her they would put it in the oven right away.

Here on Arch Street, the heart of the city's Latino business district, Alverio is treated a lot like family and a bit like royalty. Like many of Connecticut's high profile Puerto Ricans, she grew up in this city, Hard-Hittin' New Britain, the former Tool Town, but unlike some others who made their escape after achieving success, Alverio chooses to still live here.

She spoke about the old days, when her parents would make homemade sausage: "I remember one time when my parents and some other Puerto Rican families bought a pig, brought it to backyard and killed it...here in New Britain. I'm sure the neighbors thought we were heathens."

"You take your spices and marinate them in the blood of the pig," said Criollisimo's owner, Brenda Torres, "with oregano, cilantro and garlic all mixed together." Torres brought out a long, brown uncooked sausage string, about an inch and a half in diameter. After going into the oven, it would come out very dark like ebony, almost black — the color of cooked blood.

Puerto Ricans are just half the reason New Britain is the blood-sausage capital of Connecticut; the other half would be the Poles. If Arch Street, on the south side of downtown, is the place to be to get served Spanish Caribbean blood sausage for lunch, then the Polish strip on the north side is where to go for Polish blood sausage, called kiszka or kaszanka, to take home and cook for dinner. Martin Rossol's on Grove Street is a popular supplier of Polish sausages throughout the state; however, some Polish-born New Britains swear by Krakus Market on Broad Street.

Barley is what makes Polish blood sausage different from the Spanish variations. Polish variations are fat and stubby compared to Latin American varieties, more blimp-shaped, and are beloved in one form or another by Eastern Europeans from Estonia all the way down to Albania. The barley makes this sausage paler than the rice-filled Colombian morcilla and the even darker Puerto Rican version.

Colombian blood sausage can be found at Antojitos Donde Julio on Hartford's Park Street. Dominican sausage is at the extreme end of the spectrum, totally black and virtually devoid of grain — an acquired taste. But if you take your sausage black, it can be found at Gran Dominicano, a food stand inside Plaza del Mercado, a mostly Mexican Hartford bazaar on Park Street. Many Connecticut Dominicans don't know that it's available locally, assuming that the real thing can only be had "back home." Still, recent arrivals point out the telltale traces of rice in Gran Dominicano's rendition and say "tsk, tsk" in Spanish (untranslatable), even if it is visibly less rice than in Criollisimo's Puerto Rican version.

A great many Latin American restaurants throughout the state prepare morcilla, while the other varieties of blood sausage can be much harder to find. For Polish blood sausage, Hartford residents buy it at the counter of Adolf's Meats & Sausage Kitchen on New Britain Avenue. New Havenites go to Ziolos European Deli at Wozniak. In East Windsor, there's Belvedere Polish Delicatessen & Restaurant.

It would be tough to make a blood sausage map of Connecticut, as it goes under many names, and some places serve it under the name "tripe," which can be found on menus from Vietnamese to Italian. Although blood sausage may technically be tripe, not all tripe is blood sausage. "Blood pudding" is the Anglo-gringo name for blood sausage; however, readers might find it surprising that there's virtually no trace of Olde English blood pudding on menus anywhere in the Husky state. Even in Connecticut's most hard-core Irish gastropubs, the Celtic "black pudding" appears to be trotted out only for special occasions or catered events, much like haggis.

There's no sign of the German version, bludwurst. New Britain's famous East Side German Restaurant, known for its three-sausage appetizer, doesn't even do blutwurst as a special, although customers do ask for it, according to waitress and host Jessica Kizilski. It's hard to know whether Hungarian blutwurst, which is made with rice and can be found at Fairfield Meat Emporium, is any different from the German variety without an in-state basis for comparison. However, people can order blutwurst online at sites like GermanDeli.com, Spanish morcilla from LaTienda.com, and Polish kiszka from BabciaFoods.com. West Haven-based Bella Bella Gourmet Foods imports Portuguese blood sausage and ships it anywhere.